Feeding the Movement

A simple, if banal, part of protest organizing is making sure protesters have food and water. In order for people to continuously occupy the Capitol and spend long hours protesting, they needed to eat. Free food stations were quickly established outside the building, and info desks around the rotunda became pantries stocked with fruit and freshly made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

As the protests gained international media attention, Ian’s Pizza, a restaurant near the Capitol Square, became a primary way for people to demonstrate solidarity with the movement by ordering pizza for the protesters. Lots and lot of pizza. Orders came in from all fifty states and nearly sixty countries.

This exhibit offers a glimpse of the food, people, and organizations that sustained the Wisconsin protesters. What emerges is a portrait of the way the shared experience of food can be a profound and simple means of connection.

Food station outside of the Capitol.

The Capitol info desk is taken over and turned into a free food station.

Food and beverage stations in the hallway outside the TAA's makeshift office in the Capitol.

Ian's Pizza distributes donated food outside the Capitol.

Sign in Ian's Pizza showing the widespread support for the protests in the form of pizza.

Protesters outside the Capitol building refuel. It was below freezing outside, causing visible steam to rise from the box of hot pizza.

Ed Schultz filmed his MSNBC show from Madison for the second time in August, 2011 and signed an Ian's Pizza box.

A message board in the Capitol with phone numbers for the police and ACLU also thanks local organizations for donating food.

Free food and supplies were available outside the building for those occupying and protesting at the Capitol. The Teamsters Joint Council #39 truck is visible in the background.

Pizza boxes were repurposed as material for protest signs, demonstrating how pizza not only fed protester's bodies, but provided the material on which they could continue to express creative discontent.

A protester in the Capitol Rotunda holds a sign written on a pizza box that reads: "Thank You World! We Are One!" The sign expresses gratitude and solidarity, and the Ian's Pizza sticker in the center functions as an advertisement for the local business.